


she is not for you

by Drbwho



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-18 06:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2338514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drbwho/pseuds/Drbwho





	1. I

_She is not for you._

  
Words the Tully-girl’s father left unspoken, but he knew the answer all the same. Again, unuttered, as the wolf dug his blade in deep. He wasn’t killed, but something died then. Youth, perhaps? Or witless fantasy. Either way, a man was born anew through blood and steel and loss.  
  
Many years later, more than the man would like to admit, he saw her. A spectre, a ghost, his childhood love reincarnated. Was it some trick? A hallucination?  
No, not Cat, not _his_ Cat, but close. Her gentle little girl with the same ivory skin and fiery hair. But she was also the daughter of the wolf’s brother, the one who maimed a small boy, the boy who'd read too many stories and fancied himself a hero. Cat was there, in her, only she was a child of winter as well. It made her seem a little icier, but still more innocent than her predecessor, having been raised away from those who might stain her.  
  
It didn’t take long for the blemishes to form. The girl aged swiftly through necessity alone. Much like himself, she was educated on the cruelness of the world without a proper tutor; her teachers were all monsters.  
He knew because he watched. He knew because he was one of them.  
  
She formed a wall internally, between bone and organ. The barrier grew thicker, stronger with each blow, with each sadistic syllable. It served well in keeping her head away from her body’s bruises, hiding herself from terrible news. He saw this from afar, but could recognise it well. He had many walls of his own.  
  
And when the boy king came to favour flower over beast, he saw an opportunity. The lions would be loath to sacrifice a wolf in the middle of a war, but there were other ways now that the girl was quite alone.  
The lioness told him with her eyes, when he made his request.  
 _She is not for you._  
It had been expected, the rejection. Even still, the wound on his sternum broke open once more. He’d forgotten what pain felt like. It was pitch, it was soil, it was rotten. He would not feel it again.  
  
But she was alone, then; married, miserable. And so he employed a foolish friend for her. _She’d like a friend_ , he thought, and it suited his purposes, for the man still thirsted for power above all else. All the while, however, try as he might to banish it from his mind, the girl circled him, danced around in his head, taunted him. _Take me, set me free._  


Poor girl; there is no freedom; that they could ever be truly free was an illusion. He was ignis fatuus, leading her into the swamp, into another sort of prison.

A murderer, a thief; he could add those accusations to the ledger of his sins, he would scratch the words in blood and sign his name without care. There was no balance, no reconciliation for him in the end. He made that decision long ago, when he was barely older than the cargo he stole. Delicate cargo, a key to the north personified, a lady to be disguised as his baseborn nuisance. How would she take it, he wondered, when he presented the dye for her auburn locks?  
  
 _And that hair_. How he wanted it; to hold betwixt thumb and index, to curl about a digit. To yank and wrench in a fist, urgency taking precedent over any gentle caress. He wanted to see it coated in a salty sweat, mixed between skin and skin.  
  
But, still the words haunted him, in the same way _she_ sometimes did; _she is not for you._


	2. II

Something had shifted in her, drawn out with her freedom from the lions. Did she know she remained a captive? This cage was larger, yes, and there were fewer jailers, but there was still a lock, and he held the key.  
There was a quandary he hadn’t predicted; if she was imprisoned, _so was he._  
  
She was an unwitting Siren, not lounging on the rocky shoreside of Anthemoessa, calling nobel men from their courses, but building a fortress in her own world of snow. And unlike Persephone's luring companions, the girl was unaware of her temptation; she must be, to let him so near. Flakes fell, but the man didn’t retreat inside as he was wont to do. Skin did not feel the stinging cold; his attention was on small, gloved fingers and the murky, brown hair under a thick cloak. He watched her for long moments, remembering the auburn girl from his past, considering the facsimile in front of him.  
But he knew better; she wasn’t the ghost of his childhood, it was no simple duplication. This girl was a different breed altogether; she had been born in the frost and raised by villains; she would be stronger for it. She would grow to be superior to her predecessor, with the proper tutelage.  
  
  
 _A kiss._  
Only half planned. For once the man was not entirely thinking of his next step. Instead, he was feeling her mouth, soft and uncertain. He was tasting her youth, her innocence despite all she had been through. But only a taste; it wasn’t his mouth retracted in surprise and confusion, but hers. It made him voracious for more and more. The dominating avarice was quickly trumped by a small boy with a giant, and perhaps the man should have been thankful for it.  
Only a kiss, but a kiss espied regardless.  
  
There was desperate candour in pain, in hurt. Petyr had known that feeling once, long ago. He would not know it again.  
His artless, furious bride stood near to the void, holding the girl, _threatening the girl._  
And speaking to him of their youth. A madwoman's ramblings, he would say later, but they weren’t, not really. Not entirely.  
And then it came out; Cat had been Lysa all along. A drunken, confused night. A duel lost; the first domino in a long and winding line, flicked carelessly forward.  
It wasn’t pain; it was anger. Not quite the same animal, but a close relative. It was ash and flame and searing.  
Acrimony was what forced his hands, an invisible beast with a gentle smile, an unplanned and uninhibited lapse of control.  
And as she made her final noiseless and hopeless descent her mouth expelled a silence curse; that familiar string of words, condemning, warning:  
 _She is not for you._  
  
A weaker man might have fallen, then; resigning to defeat. But the future was merely a map waiting to be drawn; and he was an exceptional cartographer. A parchment and quill; the only tools required.  
  
And how swiftly he came to desire her as she flourished, no longer a child. Her eyes calculated where they used to fear; a growing boldness where reservation once lived.  
Even still, there would be no taking; and so he _entreated_. A daughter’s gentle kiss. A perch on his lap. A hand extended to press lips to a pale, perfect wrist. Small gestures, small but building. He would wait; for her comfort, for her familiarity, for her trust.  
  
This time, _he would be patient._


	3. III

All the while the board changed; accusations and mutinous eyes directed at the mockingbird high above them. If the stakes had been any lower, the tumult might have pleased him. Perhaps it did anyway, even with the swelling mountain of risk threatening an avalanche. He was an aleatoric composer, after all; thriving on a discordant, chaotic melody.  
  
And Sansa? The girl was his cadenza, his virtuosa, _his_.  
  
A match was made; a more prestigious bird than the once pinned beneath his chin. A falcon, an animal worthy of the wolf with eyes looking to the north. Had it been his suggestions, nonchalantly whispered into a pale cheek, that directed blue to her old home, sacked and in ruin? Prior to his abduction, had her desire been mere safety? Her family returned? What a foolish girl, if those had been her wishes.  
  
It occurred to him late one evening, that nearly anyone who would have been witness to his duel with Brandon was dead. Dead and gone. Save him. The tale would waste away with no one to tell it, forgotten with the passing of time.  
  
He remained patient as she learned, as she grew. As touches and kisses became less and less innocent, as they increased in frequency. Her arms no longer tensed if fingers caressed her wrist, and he committed to memory the first time her mouth responded in kind to his own. He noticed blushing refusals begin to wane, replaced by something more carnal; the way she would press her chest to his sternum, or tilt her head into his hand to allow fingers to thread into her false, brown hair. Was she aware? The change was so imperceptible, so fluid, that she might not have even realised her body’s accommodation to him.  
  
It was his own machinations did the mocking, then. She would be out of his reach soon, it would seem; wed to the handsome heir to holdings Petyr himself currently claimed. Unlike him, however, the boy seemed gallant; someone full of youth and bravery and chivalry. A match _just perfect_ for her, the girl who dreamed of an identical companion, the very antithesis of the clever man who played her spurious father. And it was his own guiding hand that arranged it all; a wedding, a marriage bed, a wolf revealed. The taunting words were owed to him alone now.  
  
A young girl’s face, a dead mother’s voice. Even dead, they were alive.  
 _She is not for you._  
  
If only the stories could be true. Perhaps then the blonde, young man wouldn’t have had a terrible fall. It happened all at once; directly after his happy union and after the raucous trip to their chambers. A drunken tumble down a stone stairwell claimed his life, witnessed by no less than three guests. There had been no push, no act of treachery; just a simple, tragic accident. An accident fueled by something decidedly more potent than mere wine, if anyone had cause to investigate. Petyr was certain they would not see a need for that. 

He had been searching for his wife. And where had Sansa been during his tumble? She had stolen away to her protector’s chambers; seeking comfort, seeking relief. She had been afraid of consummation, afraid of the boy's clumsy and urgent intoxicated advances, so different from her guardian's touch. What else could a _loving father_ do but show her there was no cause to worry? It was his paternal duty to allay her fears. And so while the falcon fell the bird sang. Under clever, circling fingers she keened against her composer. And oh, what a sweet melody she carried for Petyr Baelish.  



End file.
